PLPT 3020

Professor White is indeed amazing. He is the perfect lecturer because he's clear and concise, and that's really something to appreciate in a politics class. He'll tell you everything you need to know, and for once you can study just the notes for the class for you exams rather than panicking and going through tons of readings. He does require you to do a minimum amount of reading every class because you need to respond to reading response questions, but you can do the baaaaaare minimum for those and only spend an hour. I did more than that and less than that depending on how busy I was. At least though he ADDRESSES the reading and his lecture completely relates to the reading and author. He doesn't waste your time.

You can tell he's good because instead of wasting your time and handing you a book, he tells you specifically what parts to read even down to what paragraph to stop at. Really, you could just read what the reading response asks and stop after that if you're in rush. The only thing most didn't like is that the reading responses are corrected randomly, so if you want that A/B+ you write one up every class and then your poor work is left untouched. And yeah, sometimes they collect it consecutively. The reading responses are 20% so you can only miss 1 if you want an A-, whether it be you didn't turn it OR you didn't answer it correctly.

The other things that bothered me is the exams. Ross is a WONDERFUL TA. If you want to have a good time and a good laugh, take him. He also explains things very well. He said though to try to be concise and not write as much on the exams, but my score improved when I wrote the most I could - so do that instead. This is because White has VERY SPECIFIC criteria for how you answer the question. You could answer the question correctly in the general sense, but it won't be correct to them because White asks for specific facts. So yeah...study your notes for this class, not really the readings.
Overall though, learned a lot and would definitely recommend this class as a foundation for politics because it explains basic political ideas! Got an A-. And when you're picking your politics classes remember the upside to this class is NO ESSAYS which is golden because you don't want to get caught up with too many essays between politics classes.

I LOVED this class. A lot of people will tell you that this class is ridiculously hard and that the grading rubric is impossible, but that's just not true. It is true that I have a lot of brilliant peers who didn't end up doing well in the class, but I honestly just don't see how. If you go to lecture, take diligent notes (copy down what he says verbatim), and do the weekly responses, I don't see how you can't walk away with an A. The response papers also aren't difficult if you just do the weekly reading (which ranges from about 10-25 pages each class which is SUPER doable). Response papers only took me about an hour each. If you put in the work (which isn't much at all), you will walk away with a good class and will have learned a lot of really interesting material. The material you learn in this class provides a crucial background to any discussion involving political theory. Stephen White is definitely unnecessarily sassy and shoves his liberal political views down your throat (he went on a diatribe about Trump nearly every lecture which is really frustrating if you're conservative), but he loves it when people drop by his office hours and loves to help his students. Definitely take this class.

this was by far my favorite class that I've taken so far. I'm a first year and kind of took this class by accident, not realizing that it was a 3000 level class. I was worried I was in over my head when I got to my discussion and realized that I was the youngest person there, but decided to stay in the class anyway. The work is totally manageable and Professor White is phenomenal. The readings themselves are fairly difficult to comprehend, just because it's older writings, but you really only have to understand enough to answer the response question and then White explains the rest in lecture. I agree with everyone else here that the rubrics are really unfair for testing, and it seems like you really can't get an A unless you do outside research on *just* the right topic to fit the exam. It is fairly easy though to get within the realm of a B/B+ if you start studying hard and are able to more or less regurgitate information onto the exam. I credit my success in this class to taking super meticulous notes in this class- my notes are more or less a transcript of the entire class, though i know people who have done fine taking less notes. Overall, this class made me fall in love with politics and I'd strongly recommend it

This is a very solid intro Political Theory class and I am very glad I was able to take it with Professor White before he retired. Can be boring at times and the grading seems unfair to a lot of people, but I found the class very rewarding.

I personally think your grade in this class depends on the TA. I got an A-, but my TA seemed to be a better grader. I know some people who wrote similar papers to mine and they all got B/ B-. However, I enjoyed this class, it really is fascinating. There is homework due every single week, which is not normal for a big politics lecture. The weekly assignments did get tedious, and they do take you about and hour and a half, But it makes you keep up on the readings. Overall, its not that bad, the readings are never too long. There are two in class exams, both of which are essay questions. The essay questions are very fair, you can easily predict them yourself. I feel as though this was more of an American Politics class than a political theory class. Its all about Rousseau and Locke and Marx and how they have influenced American government (so its super interesting and important to learn!)